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Baby

Jude John Gibson arrived on February 26, 2017. He is a beautiful, dark-haired little boy. He is adored by his older brother. He sleeps and eats a lot. It has already been two months since he was born and he smiling and becoming stronger and more amazing every day!

Life has taken a whole new level of crazy and busy. I am at home taking care of two babies currently both under the age of 18 months. There are times when both of them are crying and I don’t even know what to do. And there are times when both of them are happy and smiling and I feel like I am doing it all right. And the best times, when both of them are sleeping so that I can take a nap too!

The days are pretty tough. On a typical day, I have been spit up and spilled on three times before I have eaten breakfast. I can’t take a shower without the older one trying to get in with me, even though he is fully clothed. Most days, I have anywhere from 2 minutes to 1 hour of time that I am not holding, feeding, or playing with one of the boys. And I do not sleep more than 4 hours in a row.

But these boys are pretty awesome. Brody is almost 1 and a half and he is learning so much! He loves to point to the sky when he hears an airplane. He likes seeing big trucks and tractors on the road. He will play with a ball, squealing and trying to throw it for long periods of time (which is like 10 minutes for him). He is sensitive and doesn’t like seeing his baby brother crying. He will cuddle both his baby brother and our puppy every chance he gets because he loves them so much.

Jude is just starting to smile at us. He can get pretty fired up when he wants something that he doesn’t get right away. He is also so peaceful and content when he has everything he needs. He likes to be outside in the stroller while we go for walks. He also likes to take baths. He is a pretty consistent baby and tends to eat and sleep at similar times most days. And he loves to cuddle with me while he naps.

Although it is not easy, I wouldn’t trade being with these two for anything else right now!

I am forcing myself to sit down and write this blog. It is hard to stop to do this when there are toys all over and the dishes aren’t done and I have to figure out what to make for dinner and I have to prepare for Brody’s birthday party tomorrow. It has been a long time since I wrote one, although I have written many posts in my head as I go about my day. The ideas are there and someday I may get them out!

What just happened to the past year? Brody is one and I can’t believe it. The cliches are true…”where does the time go?”

Brody is truly a joy and blessing in our lives.

He is active. He plays and learns and studies and plays some more. He loves to touch the handles on drawers and cupboards. He opens drawers and likes discovering what is inside. He likes to ‘help’ load and unload the dishwasher, which involves taking the cutlery and throwing it on the floor. He can spend periods of time playing in his playroom. He stands up at the shelves and looks at toys. He likes to remove the toys from wherever they are. He pulls himself up on anything he can, coffee table, chairs, my legs, anything.

He loves books. He particularly loves to look at a Winnie the Pooh folding book. It doesn’t really have a story but it has lots of colourful pictures. I can occasionally find him laughing at this book. He also loves books that aren’t stories but just pictures and words. He can listen to us reading these a lot!

He sleeps! He has two naps per day and then sleeps about 12 hours at night. After our harrowing sleeping training/crying it out during the summer, he does so well going to sleep and generally staying asleep, especially at night. Although it was horrible at the time, the sleeping training worked for us. I am so glad we get to sleep all night and that Brody gets the sleep he needs.

Brody loves to eat. He particularly likes lasagna and spaghetti. He eats tomatoes, avocado, most fruit, and meat. He loves cheese! He has recently started spitting out the foods he doesn’t like or doesn’t want to eat at that moment. It is quite funny and adorable when he does this, although I probably shouldn’t be laughing at him.

He plays with the dog, Hamish. He loves Hamish. He takes Hamish’s toys and Hamish takes them back. They get each other because Hamish is always careful when he plays with Brody. And Brody needs to work on being gently with Hamish but Hamish does so well at taking Brody’s ‘aggressive’ petting and love for him.

Up until now, Brody has been our little baby. But now that he is one, is he still a baby? Seems hard to imagine that he won’t always be so little and need us so much. Already he can do so much and he does more and more every day. He even started kind of using a fork to eat his food! Amazing!

And now with another baby on the way, due to arrive in March, Brody will grow up even more quickly. Having a tiny little one around will make him seem so much bigger! It continues to be truly amazing to see him grow up into the beautiful, happy little boy that he is.

Finally, I am actually writing this return post after being absent from my blog for so long. A few things have changed. The biggest, most amazing adventure of all is the birth of our baby boy, Brody. He is almost 5 months old now!

The last post I made was about having 7-10 weeks left in my pregnancy. It turned out to be fewer rather than more. I had a some minor complications that eventually turned into major complications and resulted in Brody being born by emergency C-section at 1:27am on November 7, 2015. He was healthy and happy although a little small being four weeks early. He has done a great job of gaining weight and growing since then!

It is certainly amazing to have this happy, growing boy in our lives.He likes to “talk” to us and he smiles all the time. He tells us in no uncertain terms when he is really hungry or annoyed with one of his toys! He seems to be at odds with a particular giraffe occasionally. He loves taking his bath and he is starting to splash a lot! He loves to listen to us read “Goodnight Moon” before he goes to bed every night and he likes to feel the soft fur of his little teddy bear Bible story book.

What is so hard about having a baby? As I sit here and Brody is napping, I feel like it isn’t that hard. But then I remember the 20 minutes it took to get him to sleep, the crying, the feeding, the carefully laying him down when he fell asleep while he was eating and tip-toeing out of the room and praying he wouldn’t wake up. I think it is easy to forget the hard parts because of the pure joy and relief of him being asleep even for a few minutes! Caring for this vulnerable little person and his total dependence is incredibly daunting. The lack of sleep is unbelievably hard…for me. As a person who needs her sleep, there were days I could hardly function. I begged and pleaded with Brody to take a nap so that I could too. Sometimes he agreed and sometimes he didn’t. I cried a lot. It is really hard that I just don’t know what is going to happen. I can’t plan…and for me, this is pretty bad. I am a planner! Little Mr. Brody doesn’t always tell me his plans! Another difficulty is letting go of what I want to do. I need to drop what I am doing to attend Brody when he needs something. And all these difficulties are okay. They are forgotten when he smiles or laughs or grabs a toy for the first time or does some other ‘amazing’ thing.

Parenthood has been an amazing, challenging adventure so far. I am not sure I feel like a parent yet. Sometimes I still look at Brody and cannot believe that he is ours! I am so thankful for him. He is truly amazing.